Quote: Highlighters

Source: psdGraphics

We do need to be born again, since Jesus said that to a guy named Nicodemus. But if you tell me I have to be born again to enter the Kingdom of God, I can tell you that you have to sell everything you have and give it to the poor, because Jesus said that to one guy, too. But I guess that's why God invented highlighters, so we can highlight the parts we like and ignore the rest.

~ Shane Claiborne

Quote: Highlighters

Source: psdGraphics

We do need to be born again, since Jesus said that to a guy named Nicodemus. But if you tell me I have to be born again to enter the Kingdom of God, I can tell you that you have to sell everything you have and give it to the poor, because Jesus said that to one guy, too. But I guess that's why God invented highlighters, so we can highlight the parts we like and ignore the rest.

~ Shane Claiborne

Poem: In the Mirror

Death in the mirror by mirakkkkk

The death I see
coming to me
stops to chat
more frequently.

"How's my good man?"
he asks, all grin
and bonhomie.
He can get in

any body-hole.
I squeeze mine shut,
don't even breathe.
He can hear what

I think, so I don't,
except for Go.
Because he's fast,
I try to be slow—

slow as prehistory,
slow as a stone,
slow as eternity,
slow as alone.

"I am Alone,"
he boasts. "It's fun.
I get to kiss
everyone."

His lips become
a luscious bed.
"I'll kiss you
before you're dead.

I'm the last one
you will see.
If I were you,
I'd be nicer to me."

What in the world
would that mean?
I'm afraid to ask.
Something obscene

no doubt he looks
red hot to say.
Is it possible
death is gay?

"Of course I am—
or, rather, bi-.
How do you think
women die?"

He heard my thought—
I forgot he can.
"Why would you want
to be a man?"

I finally ask aloud.
"You are thick,"
he replies. "If you were
a brick I'd be a brick.

I'm the mirror
of your sorry soul.
I reflect you
completely whole."

And when I look
I can see
him melting back
into me:

his lips, his eyes,
his razor brains.
My doughy wrinkles.
My spider veins.

~ Michael Ryan

Poem: In the Mirror

Death in the mirror by mirakkkkk

The death I see
coming to me
stops to chat
more frequently.

"How's my good man?"
he asks, all grin
and bonhomie.
He can get in

any body-hole.
I squeeze mine shut,
don't even breathe.
He can hear what

I think, so I don't,
except for Go.
Because he's fast,
I try to be slow—

slow as prehistory,
slow as a stone,
slow as eternity,
slow as alone.

"I am Alone,"
he boasts. "It's fun.
I get to kiss
everyone."

His lips become
a luscious bed.
"I'll kiss you
before you're dead.

I'm the last one
you will see.
If I were you,
I'd be nicer to me."

What in the world
would that mean?
I'm afraid to ask.
Something obscene

no doubt he looks
red hot to say.
Is it possible
death is gay?

"Of course I am—
or, rather, bi-.
How do you think
women die?"

He heard my thought—
I forgot he can.
"Why would you want
to be a man?"

I finally ask aloud.
"You are thick,"
he replies. "If you were
a brick I'd be a brick.

I'm the mirror
of your sorry soul.
I reflect you
completely whole."

And when I look
I can see
him melting back
into me:

his lips, his eyes,
his razor brains.
My doughy wrinkles.
My spider veins.

~ Michael Ryan

Quote: Commitment

Source: Mastering Online Marketing

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.

~ William Hutchison Murray

Quote: Commitment

Source: Mastering Online Marketing

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.

~ William Hutchison Murray

Poem: You Cannot Rest

Source: Unknown/Favim

The trick was to give yourself only to what
could not receive what you had to give,

leaving you as you wished, free.
Still you court the world by enacting yet once

more the ecstatic rituals of enthrallment.
You cannot rest. The great grounding

events in your life (weight lodged past
change, like the sweetest, most fantastical myth

enshrining yet enslaving promise), the great
grounding events that left you so changed

you cannot conceive your face without their
happening, happened when someone

could receive. Just as she once did, he did—past
judgment of pain or cost. Could receive. Did.

~ Frank Bidart

Poem: You Cannot Rest

Source: Unknown/Favim

The trick was to give yourself only to what
could not receive what you had to give,

leaving you as you wished, free.
Still you court the world by enacting yet once

more the ecstatic rituals of enthrallment.
You cannot rest. The great grounding

events in your life (weight lodged past
change, like the sweetest, most fantastical myth

enshrining yet enslaving promise), the great
grounding events that left you so changed

you cannot conceive your face without their
happening, happened when someone

could receive. Just as she once did, he did—past
judgment of pain or cost. Could receive. Did.

~ Frank Bidart

Quote: Prime numbers

Source: Apuntes Matemáticos

Prime numbers are what is left when you have taken all the patterns away. I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them.

~ Mark Haddon

Quote: Prime numbers

Source: Apuntes Matemáticos

Prime numbers are what is left when you have taken all the patterns away. I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them.

~ Mark Haddon

Poem: You Are The Place You Cannot Move

Credit: Panagiotis Siokas

You wake up healthy
but you don't feel right. Now everything's
backwards and you're thinking of someone to blame.

And you do, you're lucky,
drinking coffee was easy, the traffic's
moving along, you're like
everyone else just trying to get through the day
and the place you're dreaming of seems possible--
somewhere to get to.

All you really know
is that it hurts here, the way feelings
are bigger than we are, and a woman's face
in a third-story window, her limp hair
and the pots of red geraniums luring you
into her suffering until you're walking on roads
inscribed in your own body. The maps
you never speak of. Intersections, train stations,
roadside benches, the names of places and
people you've known all bearing the weight
of cashing a check or your having to eat something,
of glimpsing the newspaper's ghoulish headlines.

Like everyone else, you think,
the struggle is toward a better time, though
no pressure surrounds the house you were born in.
Cool, quieter, a vast primitive light
where nothing happens but the sound
of your sole self breathing.
And you've decisions to make. Isn't that why
you've come? with a bald-headed man at the bar
and your friends all over the place, anxious,
tired, a little less sturdy than you'd hoped for
and needing someone to kick around, someone to love.

~ Ralph Angel

Poem: You Are The Place You Cannot Move

Credit: Panagiotis Siokas

You wake up healthy
but you don't feel right. Now everything's
backwards and you're thinking of someone to blame.

And you do, you're lucky,
drinking coffee was easy, the traffic's
moving along, you're like
everyone else just trying to get through the day
and the place you're dreaming of seems possible--
somewhere to get to.

All you really know
is that it hurts here, the way feelings
are bigger than we are, and a woman's face
in a third-story window, her limp hair
and the pots of red geraniums luring you
into her suffering until you're walking on roads
inscribed in your own body. The maps
you never speak of. Intersections, train stations,
roadside benches, the names of places and
people you've known all bearing the weight
of cashing a check or your having to eat something,
of glimpsing the newspaper's ghoulish headlines.

Like everyone else, you think,
the struggle is toward a better time, though
no pressure surrounds the house you were born in.
Cool, quieter, a vast primitive light
where nothing happens but the sound
of your sole self breathing.
And you've decisions to make. Isn't that why
you've come? with a bald-headed man at the bar
and your friends all over the place, anxious,
tired, a little less sturdy than you'd hoped for
and needing someone to kick around, someone to love.

~ Ralph Angel

Quote: Home

Source: Unknown/Favim

Home wasn't a set house, or a single town on a map. It was wherever the people who loved you were, whenever you were together. Not a place, but a moment, and then another, building on each other like bricks to create a solid shelter that you take with you for your entire life, wherever you may go.

~ Sarah Dessen

Quote: Home

Source: Unknown/Favim

Home wasn't a set house, or a single town on a map. It was wherever the people who loved you were, whenever you were together. Not a place, but a moment, and then another, building on each other like bricks to create a solid shelter that you take with you for your entire life, wherever you may go.

~ Sarah Dessen

Having it Out with Melancholy

Source: Unknown/Favim

If many remedies are prescribed for an illness, you may be certain that the illness has no cure.
A. P. CHEKHOV, The Cherry Orchard

I FROM THE NURSERY

When I was born, you waited
behind a pile of linen in the nursery,
and when we were alone, you lay down
on top of me, pressing
the bile of desolation into every pore.

And from that day on
everything under the sun and moon
made me sad -- even the yellow
wooden beads that slid and spun
along a spindle on my crib.

You taught me to exist without gratitude.
You ruined my manners toward God:
"We're here simply to wait for death;
the pleasures of earth are overrated."

I only appeared to belong to my mother,
to live among blocks and cotton undershirts
with snaps; among red tin lunch boxes
and report cards in ugly brown slipcases.
I was already yours -- the anti-urge,
the mutilator of souls.

2 BOTTLES

Elavil, Ludiomil, Doxepin,
Norpramin, Prozac, Lithium, Xanax,
Wellbutrin, Parnate, Nardil, Zoloft.
The coated ones smell sweet or have
no smell; the powdery ones smell
like the chemistry lab at school
that made me hold my breath.

3 SUGGESTION FROM A FRIEND

You wouldn't be so depressed
if you really believed in God.

4 OFTEN

Often I go to bed as soon after dinner
as seems adult
(I mean I try to wait for dark)
in order to push away
from the massive pain in sleep's
frail wicker coracle.

5 ONCE THERE WAS LIGHT

Once, in my early thirties, I saw
that I was a speck of light in the great
river of light that undulates through time.

I was floating with the whole
human family. We were all colors -- those
who are living now, those who have died,
those who are not yet born. For a few

moments I floated, completely calm,
and I no longer hated having to exist.

Like a crow who smells hot blood
you came flying to pull me out
of the glowing stream.
"I'll hold you up. I never let my dear
ones drown!" After that, I wept for days.

6 IN AND OUT

The dog searches until he finds me
upstairs, lies down with a clatter
of elbows, puts his head on my foot.

Sometimes the sound of his breathing
saves my life -- in and out, in
and out; a pause, a long sigh. . . .

7 PARDON

A piece of burned meat
wears my clothes, speaks
in my voice, dispatches obligations
haltingly, or not at all.
It is tired of trying
to be stouthearted, tired
beyond measure.

We move on to the monoamine
oxidase inhibitors. Day and night
I feel as if I had drunk six cups
of coffee, but the pain stops
abruptly. With the wonder
and bitterness of someone pardoned
for a crime she did not commit
I come back to marriage and friends,
to pink fringed hollyhocks; come back
to my desk, books, and chair.

8 CREDO

Pharmaceutical wonders are at work
but I believe only in this moment
of well-being. Unholy ghost,
you are certain to come again.

Coarse, mean, you'll put your feet
on the coffee table, lean back,
and turn me into someone who can't
take the trouble to speak; someone
who can't sleep, or who does nothing
but sleep; can't read, or call
for an appointment for help.

There is nothing I can do
against your coming.
When I awake, I am still with thee.

9 WOOD THRUSH

High on Nardil and June light
I wake at four,
waiting greedily for the first
note of the wood thrush. Easeful air
presses through the screen
with the wild, complex song
of the bird, and I am overcome

by ordinary contentment.
What hurt me so terribly
all my life until this moment?
How I love the small, swiftly
beating heart of the bird
singing in the great maples;
its bright, unequivocal eye.

~ Jane Kenyon

Having it Out with Melancholy

Source: Unknown/Favim

If many remedies are prescribed for an illness, you may be certain that the illness has no cure.
A. P. CHEKHOV, The Cherry Orchard

I FROM THE NURSERY

When I was born, you waited
behind a pile of linen in the nursery,
and when we were alone, you lay down
on top of me, pressing
the bile of desolation into every pore.

And from that day on
everything under the sun and moon
made me sad -- even the yellow
wooden beads that slid and spun
along a spindle on my crib.

You taught me to exist without gratitude.
You ruined my manners toward God:
"We're here simply to wait for death;
the pleasures of earth are overrated."

I only appeared to belong to my mother,
to live among blocks and cotton undershirts
with snaps; among red tin lunch boxes
and report cards in ugly brown slipcases.
I was already yours -- the anti-urge,
the mutilator of souls.

2 BOTTLES

Elavil, Ludiomil, Doxepin,
Norpramin, Prozac, Lithium, Xanax,
Wellbutrin, Parnate, Nardil, Zoloft.
The coated ones smell sweet or have
no smell; the powdery ones smell
like the chemistry lab at school
that made me hold my breath.

3 SUGGESTION FROM A FRIEND

You wouldn't be so depressed
if you really believed in God.

4 OFTEN

Often I go to bed as soon after dinner
as seems adult
(I mean I try to wait for dark)
in order to push away
from the massive pain in sleep's
frail wicker coracle.

5 ONCE THERE WAS LIGHT

Once, in my early thirties, I saw
that I was a speck of light in the great
river of light that undulates through time.

I was floating with the whole
human family. We were all colors -- those
who are living now, those who have died,
those who are not yet born. For a few

moments I floated, completely calm,
and I no longer hated having to exist.

Like a crow who smells hot blood
you came flying to pull me out
of the glowing stream.
"I'll hold you up. I never let my dear
ones drown!" After that, I wept for days.

6 IN AND OUT

The dog searches until he finds me
upstairs, lies down with a clatter
of elbows, puts his head on my foot.

Sometimes the sound of his breathing
saves my life -- in and out, in
and out; a pause, a long sigh. . . .

7 PARDON

A piece of burned meat
wears my clothes, speaks
in my voice, dispatches obligations
haltingly, or not at all.
It is tired of trying
to be stouthearted, tired
beyond measure.

We move on to the monoamine
oxidase inhibitors. Day and night
I feel as if I had drunk six cups
of coffee, but the pain stops
abruptly. With the wonder
and bitterness of someone pardoned
for a crime she did not commit
I come back to marriage and friends,
to pink fringed hollyhocks; come back
to my desk, books, and chair.

8 CREDO

Pharmaceutical wonders are at work
but I believe only in this moment
of well-being. Unholy ghost,
you are certain to come again.

Coarse, mean, you'll put your feet
on the coffee table, lean back,
and turn me into someone who can't
take the trouble to speak; someone
who can't sleep, or who does nothing
but sleep; can't read, or call
for an appointment for help.

There is nothing I can do
against your coming.
When I awake, I am still with thee.

9 WOOD THRUSH

High on Nardil and June light
I wake at four,
waiting greedily for the first
note of the wood thrush. Easeful air
presses through the screen
with the wild, complex song
of the bird, and I am overcome

by ordinary contentment.
What hurt me so terribly
all my life until this moment?
How I love the small, swiftly
beating heart of the bird
singing in the great maples;
its bright, unequivocal eye.

~ Jane Kenyon

Quote: Society

Credit: High Society, 1998 by Cecily Brown

What, I wondered, did he mean by “society”? The plural of human beings? Where was the substance of this thing called “society”? I had spent my whole life thinking that society must certainly be something powerful, harsh and severe, but to hear Horiki talk made the words “Don’t you mean yourself?” come to the tip of my tongue. But I held the words back, reluctant to anger him.
‘Society won’t stand for it.’
‘It’s not society. You’re the one who won’t stand for it - right?’
‘If you do such a thing society will make you suffer for it’
‘It’s not society. It’s you, isn’t it?’
‘Before you know it, you’ll be ostracized by society.’
‘It’s not society. You’re going to do the ostracizing, aren’t you?’
Words, words of every kind went flitting through my head. “Know thy particular fearsomeness, thy knavery, cunning and witchcraft!” What I said, however, as I wiped the perspiration from my face with a handkerchief was merely, “You’ve put me in a cold sweat!” I smiled.
From then on, however, I came to hold, almost as a philosophical conviction, the belief: What is society but an individual?

~ Osamu Dazai

Quote: Society

Credit: High Society, 1998 by Cecily Brown

What, I wondered, did he mean by “society”? The plural of human beings? Where was the substance of this thing called “society”? I had spent my whole life thinking that society must certainly be something powerful, harsh and severe, but to hear Horiki talk made the words “Don’t you mean yourself?” come to the tip of my tongue. But I held the words back, reluctant to anger him.
‘Society won’t stand for it.’
‘It’s not society. You’re the one who won’t stand for it - right?’
‘If you do such a thing society will make you suffer for it’
‘It’s not society. It’s you, isn’t it?’
‘Before you know it, you’ll be ostracized by society.’
‘It’s not society. You’re going to do the ostracizing, aren’t you?’
Words, words of every kind went flitting through my head. “Know thy particular fearsomeness, thy knavery, cunning and witchcraft!” What I said, however, as I wiped the perspiration from my face with a handkerchief was merely, “You’ve put me in a cold sweat!” I smiled.
From then on, however, I came to hold, almost as a philosophical conviction, the belief: What is society but an individual?

~ Osamu Dazai

Poem: The Quiet World

Source: Unknown

In an effort to get people to look
into each other's eyes more,
the government has decided to allot
each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.

When the phone rings, I put it
to my ear without saying hello.
In the restaurant I point
at chicken noodle soup. I am
adjusting well to the new way.

Late at night, I call my long distance lover, 

proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn't respond, I know
she's used up all her words
so I slowly whisper I love you,
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.

~ Jeffrey McDaniel

Poem: The Quiet World

Source: Unknown

In an effort to get people to look
into each other's eyes more,
the government has decided to allot
each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.

When the phone rings, I put it
to my ear without saying hello.
In the restaurant I point
at chicken noodle soup. I am
adjusting well to the new way.

Late at night, I call my long distance lover, 

proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn't respond, I know
she's used up all her words
so I slowly whisper I love you,
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.

~ Jeffrey McDaniel

Quote: Formation of character

Credit: Sara Luxe

It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed...the habits of a vigorous mind are formed contending with difficulties. All history will convince you of this, and that wisdom and penetration are the fruit of experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure. Great necessities call out great virtues.

~ Abigail Adams

Quote: Formation of character

Credit: Sara Luxe

It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed...the habits of a vigorous mind are formed contending with difficulties. All history will convince you of this, and that wisdom and penetration are the fruit of experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure. Great necessities call out great virtues.

~ Abigail Adams

Poem: Uphill

Credit: Renée Louise Anderson

Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day's journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.

But is there for the night a resting-place?
A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
You cannot miss that inn.

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
They will not keep you standing at that door.

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
Of labour you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
Yea, beds for all who come.

~ Christina Rossetti

Poem: Uphill

Credit: Renée Louise Anderson

Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day's journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.

But is there for the night a resting-place?
A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
You cannot miss that inn.

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
They will not keep you standing at that door.

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
Of labour you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
Yea, beds for all who come.

~ Christina Rossetti

Quote: People

Source: Clint Catalyst/Favim 

We are all a volume on a shelf of a library, a story unto ourselves, never possibly described with one word or even very accurately with thousands. A person is never as quiet or unrestrained as they seem, or as bad or good, as vulnerable or as strong, as sweet or as fiesty; we are thickly layered, page upon lying page, behind simple covers. And love - it is not the book itself, but the binding. It can rip us apart or hold us together.

~ Deb Caletti

Quote: People

Source: Clint Catalyst/Favim 

We are all a volume on a shelf of a library, a story unto ourselves, never possibly described with one word or even very accurately with thousands. A person is never as quiet or unrestrained as they seem, or as bad or good, as vulnerable or as strong, as sweet or as fiesty; we are thickly layered, page upon lying page, behind simple covers. And love - it is not the book itself, but the binding. It can rip us apart or hold us together.

~ Deb Caletti

Poem: Habits

Source: existanceisart.tumblr.com

i haven’t written a poem in so long
i may have forgotten how
unless writing a poem
is like riding a bike
or swimming upstream
or loving you
it may be a habit that once acquired
is never lost

but you say i'm foolish
of course you love me
but being loved of course
is not the same as being loved because
or being loved despite
or being loved

if you love me why
do i feel so lonely
and why do i always wake up alone
and why am i practicing
not having you to love
i never loved you that way

if being loved by you is accepting always
getting the worst
taking the least
hearing the excuse
and never being called when you say you will
then it’s a habit
like smoking cigarettes
or brushing my teeth when i awake
something i could just as well do

most habits occur
because of laziness
we overdrink
because our friends do
we overeat
because our parents think
we need more flesh
on the bones
and perhaps my worst habit
is overloving
and like most who live
to excess
i will be broken
in two
by my unwillingness
to control my feelings

but i sit writing
a poem
about my habits
which while it’s not
a great poem
is mine
and some habits
like smiling at children
or giving a seat to an old person
should stay
if for no other reason
than their civilizing
influence

which is the ultimate
habit
i need
to acquire

~ Nikki Giovanni

Poem: Habits

Source: existanceisart.tumblr.com

i haven’t written a poem in so long
i may have forgotten how
unless writing a poem
is like riding a bike
or swimming upstream
or loving you
it may be a habit that once acquired
is never lost

but you say i'm foolish
of course you love me
but being loved of course
is not the same as being loved because
or being loved despite
or being loved

if you love me why
do i feel so lonely
and why do i always wake up alone
and why am i practicing
not having you to love
i never loved you that way

if being loved by you is accepting always
getting the worst
taking the least
hearing the excuse
and never being called when you say you will
then it’s a habit
like smoking cigarettes
or brushing my teeth when i awake
something i could just as well do

most habits occur
because of laziness
we overdrink
because our friends do
we overeat
because our parents think
we need more flesh
on the bones
and perhaps my worst habit
is overloving
and like most who live
to excess
i will be broken
in two
by my unwillingness
to control my feelings

but i sit writing
a poem
about my habits
which while it’s not
a great poem
is mine
and some habits
like smiling at children
or giving a seat to an old person
should stay
if for no other reason
than their civilizing
influence

which is the ultimate
habit
i need
to acquire

~ Nikki Giovanni

Quote: Romance novels

Source: Blissclub.Tumblr/Favim

Romance novels are birthday cake and life is often peanut butter and jelly. I think everyone should have lots of delicious romance novels lying around for those times when the peanut butter of life gets stuck to the roof of your mouth.

~ Janet Evanovich

Quote: Romance novels

Source: Blissclub.Tumblr/Favim

Romance novels are birthday cake and life is often peanut butter and jelly. I think everyone should have lots of delicious romance novels lying around for those times when the peanut butter of life gets stuck to the roof of your mouth.

~ Janet Evanovich

Poem: Sudden

Source: The Guardian

If it had been a heart attack, the newspaper
might have used the word massive,
          as if a mountain range had opened
                      inside her, but instead

it used the word suddenly, a light coming on

in an empty room. The telephone

fell from my shoulder, a black parrot repeating
                        something happened, something awful

            a sunday, dusky. If it had been

terminal, we could have cradled her
as she grew smaller, wiped her mouth,

                  said good-bye. But it was sudden,

how overnight we could be orphaned
& the world became a bell we'd crawl inside
& the ringing all we'd eat.

~ Nick Flynn

Poem: Sudden

Source: The Guardian

If it had been a heart attack, the newspaper
might have used the word massive,
          as if a mountain range had opened
                      inside her, but instead

it used the word suddenly, a light coming on

in an empty room. The telephone

fell from my shoulder, a black parrot repeating
                        something happened, something awful

            a sunday, dusky. If it had been

terminal, we could have cradled her
as she grew smaller, wiped her mouth,

                  said good-bye. But it was sudden,

how overnight we could be orphaned
& the world became a bell we'd crawl inside
& the ringing all we'd eat.

~ Nick Flynn

Quote: Booksellers

Source: Wikimedia

I love seeing the bookshops and meeting the booksellers-- booksellers really are a special breed. No one in their right mind would take up clerking in a bookstore for the salary, and no one in his right mind would want to own one-- the margin of profit is too small. So, it has to be a love of readers and reading that makes them do it-- along with first dibs on the new books.

~ Mary Ann Shaffer

Quote: Booksellers

Source: Wikimedia

I love seeing the bookshops and meeting the booksellers-- booksellers really are a special breed. No one in their right mind would take up clerking in a bookstore for the salary, and no one in his right mind would want to own one-- the margin of profit is too small. So, it has to be a love of readers and reading that makes them do it-- along with first dibs on the new books.

~ Mary Ann Shaffer

Coping

Photo: a boy and his puddle by michel_v

It has rained for five days
running the world is
a round puddle
of sunless water
where small islands
are only beginning
to cope
a young boy
in my garden
is bailing out water
from his flower patch
when I ask him why
he tells me
young seeds that have not seen sun
forget
and drown easily.

~ Audre Lorde

Quote: Life

Source: Unknown/Favim

Life is grace. Sleep is forgiveness. The night absolves. Darkness wipes the slate clean, not spotless to be sure, but clean enough for another day's chalking.

~  Frederick Buechner

Quote: Life

Source: Unknown/Favim

Life is grace. Sleep is forgiveness. The night absolves. Darkness wipes the slate clean, not spotless to be sure, but clean enough for another day's chalking.

~  Frederick Buechner

Poem: HOLY HOLY WHOMEVER,

Source: Unknown/Favim

From the start, I carried you

in my pocket and not in my heart. I want to forget that

my body is borrowed from dirt.

And heaven is no higher than my own library.

I realize I'm dreaming again but it's real: the lights

are getting weirder like a disco ball. I cut out

my heart with a dollar bill. Some unseen force pushes us

like carts across the supermarket parking lot.

I know what the steam rising from my tea means,

and the mingling plumes from two chimneys:

the body ruins everything. The stars are stuck in dark.

The moon becomes an inky green. In some dreams

you paint a self-portrait with your wings.

And the most beautiful thing you do is disappear

each time an hour turns into a year.

I'm looking for a god that comes like a rod

of lightning or a sudden airhorn,

a bee sting, anything other than the usual

bones beneath our scars.

~ C. Dylan Bassett

Poem: HOLY HOLY WHOMEVER,

Source: Unknown/Favim

From the start, I carried you

in my pocket and not in my heart. I want to forget that

my body is borrowed from dirt.

And heaven is no higher than my own library.

I realize I'm dreaming again but it's real: the lights

are getting weirder like a disco ball. I cut out

my heart with a dollar bill. Some unseen force pushes us

like carts across the supermarket parking lot.

I know what the steam rising from my tea means,

and the mingling plumes from two chimneys:

the body ruins everything. The stars are stuck in dark.

The moon becomes an inky green. In some dreams

you paint a self-portrait with your wings.

And the most beautiful thing you do is disappear

each time an hour turns into a year.

I'm looking for a god that comes like a rod

of lightning or a sudden airhorn,

a bee sting, anything other than the usual

bones beneath our scars.

~ C. Dylan Bassett

Quote: What I will do

Photo: Determined Face by La Fille Sauvage

I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it calls itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use - silence, exile, and cunning.

~ James Joyce

Quote: What I will do

Photo: Determined Face by La Fille Sauvage

I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it calls itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use - silence, exile, and cunning.

~ James Joyce

Poem: The Nude that Stays Nude

Photo: William Logan from the Sewanee website

Don’t do what all the other little buggers are doing.

Don’t try to make the poem look pretty. You’re not decorating cupcakes, Cupcake.

Don’t think you’re the only bastard who ever suffered — just write as if you were.

Don’t eat someone else’s lunch. For eat read steal. For lunch read wife. For wife read style.

Don’t be any form’s bitch.

Don’t think if you cheat on form or slip the meter, no one will notice. They’ll know and think you a fool. Don’t think it impossible to cheat on form. If you do it well, they’ll think you a genius.

Don’t think if you declare yourself avant-garde, your sins will be forgiven.

Don’t blubber if you never receive prizes. Look at the poets who won the Pulitzer fifty years ago. See who’s there. See who’s not.

Don’t think you’re special. Stand in a library amid all those poets who thought they were every inch the genius you think you are.

Don’t double-space your lines and think the poem better. It just takes up more room.

Don’t think regret is 20/20. Regret is myopic. Hope is astigmatic. Trust is blind.

Don’t think what you have to say is important. The way you say it is what’s important. What you have to say is rubbish.

Don’t think you don’t have to read. You read in order to steal. Read more, steal better.

Don’t think your poems are good because they sound good read aloud. Get your hearing checked.

Never write poems about poetry.

Don’t play to the audience. Your audience is full of dopes, cheeseballs, and Johnny-come-latelies?—?besides, they’re laughing at you all the way home.

Don’t think you’ve been anointed by early success. Look at the critical darlings of a hundred years ago. Look at the darlings of twenty years ago.

Never wish you were there. Wish you were here.

Don’t think you can ignore grammar. You need grammar more than grammar needs you.

Never eat the pie if you can own the fork.

Don’t think new is better. Don’t think new is not better. Don’t think, read. Don’t think, ink.

Poetry is the nude that stays nude.

Never write the first line if you already know the last. The best poem is the unwritten poem.

Don’t break the window before you look at the view.

Don’t think that if you have two manuscripts, you have two manuscripts. You have one manuscript.

Don’t eat jargon, because you’ll shit jargon.

Don’t think poetry is a religion. It’s more important than religion.

~ William Logan

Poem: The Nude that Stays Nude

Photo: William Logan from the Sewanee website

Don’t do what all the other little buggers are doing.

Don’t try to make the poem look pretty. You’re not decorating cupcakes, Cupcake.

Don’t think you’re the only bastard who ever suffered — just write as if you were.

Don’t eat someone else’s lunch. For eat read steal. For lunch read wife. For wife read style.

Don’t be any form’s bitch.

Don’t think if you cheat on form or slip the meter, no one will notice. They’ll know and think you a fool. Don’t think it impossible to cheat on form. If you do it well, they’ll think you a genius.

Don’t think if you declare yourself avant-garde, your sins will be forgiven.

Don’t blubber if you never receive prizes. Look at the poets who won the Pulitzer fifty years ago. See who’s there. See who’s not.

Don’t think you’re special. Stand in a library amid all those poets who thought they were every inch the genius you think you are.

Don’t double-space your lines and think the poem better. It just takes up more room.

Don’t think regret is 20/20. Regret is myopic. Hope is astigmatic. Trust is blind.

Don’t think what you have to say is important. The way you say it is what’s important. What you have to say is rubbish.

Don’t think you don’t have to read. You read in order to steal. Read more, steal better.

Don’t think your poems are good because they sound good read aloud. Get your hearing checked.

Never write poems about poetry.

Don’t play to the audience. Your audience is full of dopes, cheeseballs, and Johnny-come-latelies?—?besides, they’re laughing at you all the way home.

Don’t think you’ve been anointed by early success. Look at the critical darlings of a hundred years ago. Look at the darlings of twenty years ago.

Never wish you were there. Wish you were here.

Don’t think you can ignore grammar. You need grammar more than grammar needs you.

Never eat the pie if you can own the fork.

Don’t think new is better. Don’t think new is not better. Don’t think, read. Don’t think, ink.

Poetry is the nude that stays nude.

Never write the first line if you already know the last. The best poem is the unwritten poem.

Don’t break the window before you look at the view.

Don’t think that if you have two manuscripts, you have two manuscripts. You have one manuscript.

Don’t eat jargon, because you’ll shit jargon.

Don’t think poetry is a religion. It’s more important than religion.

~ William Logan

Quote: Anger

Source: Unknown/Favim

"Anger is just anger. It isn't good. It isn't bad. It just is. What you do with it is what matters. It's like anything else. You can use it to build or to destroy. You just have to make the choice."
Constructive anger," the demon said, her voice dripping sarcasm.
Also known as passion," I said quietly. "Passion has overthrown tyrants and freed prisoners and slaves. Passion has brought justice where there was savagery. Passion has created freedom where there was nothing but fear. Passion has helped souls rise from the ashes of their horrible lives and build something better, stronger, more beautiful.”

~ Jim Butcher

Quote: Anger

Source: Unknown/Favim

"Anger is just anger. It isn't good. It isn't bad. It just is. What you do with it is what matters. It's like anything else. You can use it to build or to destroy. You just have to make the choice."
Constructive anger," the demon said, her voice dripping sarcasm.
Also known as passion," I said quietly. "Passion has overthrown tyrants and freed prisoners and slaves. Passion has brought justice where there was savagery. Passion has created freedom where there was nothing but fear. Passion has helped souls rise from the ashes of their horrible lives and build something better, stronger, more beautiful.”

~ Jim Butcher

Poem: Small Town

Source: About.com Miniatures

You know.
The light on upstairs
before four every morning. The man
asleep every night before eight.
What programs they watch. Who
traded cars, what keeps the town
moving.
The town knows. You
know. You’ve known for years over
drugstore coffee. Who hurts, who
loves.
Why, today, in the house
two down from the church, people
you know cannot stop weeping.

~ Philip Booth

Poem: Small Town

Source: About.com Miniatures

You know.
The light on upstairs
before four every morning. The man
asleep every night before eight.
What programs they watch. Who
traded cars, what keeps the town
moving.
The town knows. You
know. You’ve known for years over
drugstore coffee. Who hurts, who
loves.
Why, today, in the house
two down from the church, people
you know cannot stop weeping.

~ Philip Booth

Water

Source: Unknown/Favim

Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.

~ Margaret Atwood